In this series of sermons we’re thinking about not just the text of Handel’s Messiah, but also the music, and how the text and music work together. So it seems reasonable to start from what we have heard.
Take the recitative: I love this recitative. I love the word-painting, it’s brilliant. Every phrase sounds like a sort of opening out, an unpeeling, a drawing back of what has been shackling and limiting the blind, the deaf, the lame and the dumb. It would be very easy to choreograph this recitative. Don’t worry, I’m not going to break into a liturgical dance, but we can almost hear the creaking of bent limbs straightening out, see the sunlight filtering through to light up what had been in darkness, and a world of new sounds entering ears that have never known sound before.
The last of the phrases in the recit is the tongue of the dumb shall sing. And I found myself asking, what does the dumb person sing, when she first receives the gift of speech again? What does she sing, what is the first thing she utters? It’s a question that is probably worth asking ourselves. In this context, of course, it appears that the first thing she sings is the aria. The first thing she chooses to sing about is Jesus, the Good Shepherd, and how he will care for her, gather her up, and carry her, along with all his flock.
I don’t know whether Handel and his librettist intended me to hear it that way, but that’s how I always do hear it. The recitative leads on into the aria, and gives poignancy to the simple faith of the singer.
But there is more to healing than the restoration of sight, hearing, speech or movement. Jesus did all of these things during his earthly ministry. But the blind, deaf, lame and dumb are not the only ones who are in need of healing. The aria goes on to recognise that we are all burdened in some way. We each have a load to bear, we are each of us heavy laden. We each need liberation, healing, and wholeness, a wholeness that we can find only in the Good Shepherd. Being gathered into his flock is not about removing all our weaknesses, so that we can be self-sufficient. It is about laying our weakness on the Lord and trusting in his strength, so that he can take the strain of all that weighs us down.
What else do we hear in the aria?
Well, something happens half way through. We have a change of voice, a change of text, and a change of key. But we use all the same music again. It’s as if Handel is telling us that the second half of the aria is about something that’s a bit different, but entirely in keeping with what has already been said. The change of key isn’t even unexpected – Handel prepares it in the very first 2 bars of the aria, and it simply makes the whole aria into one huge perfect cadence. So when we get to it, the change makes perfect sense – we get the feeling that this is where we were headed all along.
I think this musical effect helps us in two ways when we look at the text.
First, like in many numbers in Handel’s Messiah, old and new testament texts are set in relation to each other. In this case it’s a bit of Isaiah 40, and a bit of Matthew. Handel sets these two texts to the same music, but by using two different keys in the form of an extended cadence, what we hear is that the latter part of the aria is the fulfilment of the former. That Isaiah’s prophecy about the shepherd is fulfilled in Jesus’ invitation to ‘come to him’, here transferred into the third person. The two texts are made exactly parallel, so that we can be in no doubt that Handel and his librettist believe that Jesus is the shepherd of which the prophet spoke.
Second, it’s all very well singing about shepherds, but if you don’t do anything about it, what’s the point? The alto describes and promises all that the shepherd will do, but when the soprano comes in, she exhorts: Come unto him. This is the point of all that’s gone before. This is the promise fulfilled. This is no longer a prophecy, but the real thing, and if we do nothing about it, then the prophecy is worthless. Once we recognise who the Shepherd is, we will obey his command to come unto him, and we will receive the healing and wholeness that only he can give.
What else do we hear in the aria?
Well, we hear a pleasant, pastoral song, in the siciliano style that Peter spoke about in the first sermon in this series – a style of music that, for the people who first heard Messiah, would have conjured up a whole set of images and references.
But at the risk of stating the obvious, even though Handel appears to buy into it wholeheartedly, the image of the shepherd isn’t always a gentle one. Probably many of us were brought up with pictures of Jesus the good shepherd in an idyllic landscape, holding a perfect white little lamb, surrounded by smiling children.
To the first-century Jews, the shepherd image was a bit different. For one thing, it was an image used of the King – the shepherd of Israel. And for another thing, everyone knew what it took to be a good shepherd. The shepherd cared for his flock at all costs. He lay down at night in the entrance to the sheep fold, ready to fight off any wolves that came to attack the sheep. He would indeed lay down his life for his sheep. It’s an incredibly strong and powerful image, and if we allow ourselves to hum along uncritically to Handel’s easy pleasant pastoral music, we miss something. What we miss is the double paradox that the shepherd is at once gentle and fierce, and that his strength lies in his willingness to lay himself open to vulnerability and attack.
At the risk of stealing my own thunder for a fortnight’s time, I’d like to end by saying a little more about this vulnerability. It’s something we don’t hear in this aria, but which nevertheless hangs over it, precisely because we all know what happens next in the story.
This aria and the chorus which follows it using part of the same text, end part I of Messiah. At a concert performance we head off to the interval on this joyous note, full of warm fuzzy feelings about little lambs and burdens being lifted off our shoulders.
Then we come back from the interval, full of tea, or wine, or just having stretched our legs, ready for more of the same. But what we get instead is a headlong plummet into the passion and crucifixion: Part II starts with the chorus ‘behold the Lamb of God who takest away the sin of the world’ and continues with the aria ‘he was despised’, which I will be talking about on Palm Sunday.
What happened to Jesus’ burden being light? What happened to his yoke being easy? A yoke links two beasts of burden, meaning that the load is halved for each of them. But sometimes a farmer would pair a very young ox with a stronger one – then the load isn’t shared equally at all. This seems to be the model of Christ’s yoke. Jesus took our humanity when he yoked up with us. He accepted the burdens of our weakness on his own shoulders. Part II of Messiah reminds us that the Good Shepherd is also the one who, for the sake of his flock, became a lamb for the slaughter. Jesus’ burden was indeed light and his yoke easy until he took on ours. But more of that in two weeks’ time.
Messiah takes us on a journey. The way that the libretto is put together and the way that Handel sets it mean that we do not get just a chronological account of Jesus’ life. We don’t even just get Jesus’ life in the context of the Messianic prophecies. Recitative leads into aria, text comments on text, music comments on words, and through it all we are drawn into a drama of prophecy, incarnation, passion, resurrection and judgement. And we are required not just to listen, but to respond. If we’re hearing it right, this oratorio is a challenge to us.
There’s something special about actually singing this piece, or singing one of the Bach passions – by singing the words ourselves, we are changed by them, we can’t just let them wash over us. But even if we never get the chance to sing it, when we hear Messiah, we are invited to respond. To go back to the original question from the recitative: What do we hear with our unstopped ears? What do we look at with our opened eyes? And what is the first thing we want to sing with our loosened tongues?